H λ L F - L I F E: Bishop's War✔️

CHλPTER 09: Topside

Back in the sunshine once again.

As they emerged in the bright desert sun, Eric felt a hell of a lot better. Even though his arm was beginning to bug him as the lidocaine wore off, he still felt great. He had a goal, a clear objective in mind, and more people on the other end of this goal! All they had to do was get to the parking garage, hole up with the others, probably perform some defense, and wait for the military to clean up the mess! And it wasn't like they even had to go that far. Although he had no idea what lay between here and there.

And now that he had seen one of those alien slaves in action...he was a lot less confident about his chances of survival now. But he couldn't let anyone else see that. He wasn't sure, but he thought he might've been elected group leader. Obviously he was by Steven, but he thought Vanessa might be able to do a better job than him. Then again...this was a combat situation and he'd seen combat before. One of the first rules of leadership under fire: don't let those under you see how afraid you are. Broken confidence was viral.

"All right, let's keep it tight and simple. I want the two of you behind me. We need to move through this next area. Got it?" he asked, looking at the pair of them. Both of them nodded. He turned back around, facing the concrete path, the way yet gone. There was a lot of machine gun fire coming from somewhere relatively close. Here's hoping there wasn't a friendly fire incident. The pathway curved around, following the natural valley, and quickly opened up into a bigger area. It appeared to be the side of the dormitories building Jackson had informed him of. Nothing on the outside but sand and a few squat cacti.

Eric led the pair towards a side entrance. There might be survivors inside, or something useful. Maybe the military had left behind a machine gun. That would sure make him feel better. Eric opened the door and peered inside, finding a long corridor stretching away from him to either side. A few unmoving shapes were slumped along it. Mostly security guards, but he saw a single alien slave and a zombie mixed up in there as well. All along the wall ahead of him were doors with names above them. Most were closed.

"Quick search of these, you two break right, I'll go left, we meet back in the middle," he said quietly as he slipped inside.

They both responded quietly and went off. Eric moved down the row, cautiously opening each door and peering within. What he found looked very familiar: they were basically copies of his own dorm, only here they were doubled up with a bunk bed. He moved into each one, checking under the bed, in the small bathroom. In one shower cubicle, he found a dead man in his boxer shorts. He'd put a gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger, making a huge mess of his brains all over the wall behind him. Somehow, Eric couldn't bring himself to salvage the ammo and instead turned out the light, leaving the body behind.

How many had died in this invasion so far?

How many were destined to die?

The answer to the first question had to be in the hundreds by now, just going by what he had seen so far. The second question though...he had no idea. Maybe thousands, if this situation kept going. Since he still had no idea what had actually caused this mess, he had no idea how they might put an end to it. All he could do was keep helping people, keep killing monsters. It was, at least, a relatively simple set of instructions. With this in mind, he finished searching his side of the corridor and then approached the turn at the end of the passageway. All he had to do was poke his head around and make sure there was nothing-

Right as he got up to it, that weird, low whooping sound came to him. He quickly switched to his shotgun and pressed himself against the wall next to the corner. Listening, he heard one of the alien slaves. No...two. At least two. Maybe more. He took a breath, released it, took another, released. Time to do this, had to be fast. Eric leaned around the corner, shotgun ready, and bit back a curse as he saw not one, not two, but five of the bastards gathered in the main lobby! He was so surprised his first shot went wild, hitting the wall behind them and instantly alerting them to his presence. They all turned on him at once and began charging their attacks.